a philosopher's sketchbook

The Olive Presser Explained

Aristotle tells a story about Thales of Miletus, where a local business person accuses Thales of wasting his time with philosophy. In response to this, Thales goes out in the winter and leases all of the olive presses in town for the next olive harvest. Since it’s the off-season, Thales gets the presses for cheap. The same local mocks Thales further for renting olive presses in the middle of winter. But next spring, this guy needs to process his olive harvest, and Thales sublets the olive presses to him and the other olive merchants for a nice profit. After which, he continues his philosophical pursuits. You can read the whole story here and more about Thales here.

An Olive Presser is someone who knows the marginal utility of money. An Olive Presser also knows how make money work for them, rather than simply working for money. Finally, Olive Pressers go out and live their lives; they don’t set around wringing their hands over financial reports.

So stay tuned, and we’ll figure out this whole business of Olive Pressing together. If you already cornered the market on Olive Pressing, let us know about it: leave a comment.